Brad Rose

Luck

That’s the fastest escalator I’ve ever ridden. I’m not afraid of heights. As long as they’re indoors. Looked through the plus-size department, but couldn’t find anything I liked. There’s a 7 billion dollar market in Halloween merchandise. That’s what the paper said. You’d think I could find something without horizontal stripes. Took the elevator down. I only go down in elevators, never up. I told Justine my luck really isn’t luck. It just looks that way. That’s why I keep my money in a paper bag. Looks like an old lunch. And those killer beeps. These days, they’re everywhere you go. No getting away from them. I’d wear earplugs, but I left them at church on Sunday. Pastor said we’ve all got a calling, but asked us to turn off our cell phones during the service. Said he didn’t think the Lord needed interruptions. He smiled when he said that. I turned mine to “vibrate” in case one of my kids got into an accident. Justine—she’s’ the prettiest darn thing—said she felt like playing poker after church. Some days you just feel it. We went to the Orleans and played a few hands. The place is clean. Mostly locals go there because the atmosphere is friendly. It’s low stakes. I didn’t trust the dealer, though. He looked like my parole officer. I think he was wearing a wig. I hate wigs on men. Of course, you can get used to almost anything, if you concentrate. Like those ventriloquists. They’re great concentrators. Hardly move their lips. And those dummies; it’s not easy with someone else’s words coming out of your mouth. Like that time in court. Sure, I knew I was an accomplice, but I didn’t plan the thing. I was just the driver. Didn’t even use a stolen car. Probably should have. Jack was the one that said there was a lot of money in there. Jack’s so smart. At least he thinks so. But what good did it do him? Got an even 20 for arson of an occupied structure. Thank goodness everybody got out. The place burned down in about a minute. Everybody got out. Everybody, but one. That’s what I call real luck.

Afternoon Rendezvous

The temperature crawls through the room.

I swallow you, like a glass of water.

On the floor, our deserted clothes rest comfortably

as a sleeping husband recovering from a cardiac event.

Your unattainable beauty, un-caged,

feral eyes, empty as a desert.

I swim through this deliberate amnesia,

this moment of fire forgetting flame.

Outside, the rain, a felled forest,

buildings, glistening bayonets,

I vow to keep our secret hidden from the gods.

Who would tell them? you ask.

Who would they punish, if they knew?

Before ‘The Three Dancers’

In the front yard,

sunburned, shirtless,

Picasso mows the blue grass.

The petulant scythe shaves close

the lawn’s picture plane.

The cloudless sky

is the color of a window.

In the mind’s eye

three figures writhe

against the curl of feral velocity.

He pauses,

& with an ice-white cloth,

daubs his damp brow,

stoops low toward the earth’s fresh cut scent,

wonders,

What color are these weeds?

CP

Brad Rose was born and raised in southern California, and lives in Boston. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a 2013 recipient of a Camroc Press Review Editor’s Favorite Award. Brad’s poetry and fiction have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Review, Monkeybicycle, MadHat Lit, and other fine publications. Links to his writing can be found at: http://bradrosepoetry.blogspot.com/ His chapbook of micro fiction, Coyotes Circle the Party Store, can be read at: https://sites.google.com/site/bradroserhpchapbook/ Audio recordings of a selection of Brad’s poetry can be heard at: https://soundcloud.com/bradrose1

Brad Rose

A Bite, Not a Sting

Of course, real punishment is having to be the person you are, although frankly, it’s already none of my business. As I recite this poem to your lie detector, I notice that my mouth disperses vibrant, hard-to-pin-down air, with the flavor of a multivitamin. It’s like being ill and ugly cool. Whenever I’m seized by choreomania, I find it’s best to allege that I’m renowned for failing at next steps. Nonetheless, I tweet whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like it. You probably think that’s because Elvis impersonators are a dime a dozen. But that’s not true. It’s like that time you told me that the mosquitos were singing you an aria. “Believe me,” I said, while slapping myself in the face, “it’s for your own good.” For better and for worse, our memories are reshaped and rewritten every time we recall an event. “Don’t’ be ridiculous,” you assured me, “mosquitos don’t sting.” 

The Truth About Love

Long ago, when music was rectangular, I was voted by my senior class “most likely to survive capital punishment.” Of course, there are many different kinds of love. Some are angry fun, others, a one-car funeral. Like that time we were driving across the Golden Gate Bridge and you told me that I have two different colored eyes. I realized, right then and there, we are spied upon by our own Wi-Fi. As long as I am barreling through this amnesia, I might as well mention that incident with the lesbian robots. At first, I thought it was a party trick, until you told me it was just me. How was I to know it wasn’t necessary to communicate exclusively via homophones? What did you expect? I don’t read music, although I do own all the Led Zeppelin Christmas albums. By the way, I don’t care what color they are, Fruit Loops are all an identical flavor, and I’m willing to bet some real Hollywood money to prove it, too. Yes, I was in church when that terrible weight-lifting accident happened. The barbells were so heavy, not even Jesus could lift them. But as you know, we’re always willing to forgive beauty, even if we’re never prepared to forgive love. Just as time leaks from a clock, little by little, love leaks from our lives. There is nothing we can do about it. It’s the just law of averages. Because everyone knows love is nothing like that.

  

CP

Brad Rose was born and raised in southern California, and lives in Boston. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee, in fiction, and a 2013 recipient of Camroc Press Review’s, Editor’s Favorite Award.  Brad’s poetry and fiction have appeared in The Baltimore Review, Right Hand Pointing, The Potomac, Santa Fe Literary Review, Monkeybicycle, and other fine publications.  Links to his poetry and fiction can be found at: http://bradrosepoetry.blogspot.com/  His chapbook of miniature fiction, Coyotes Circle the Party Store, can be read at: https://sites.google.com/site/bradroserhpchapbook/   Audio recordings of a selection of Brad’s published poetry can be heard at: https://soundcloud.com/bradrose1

Brad Rose

The Traveling Salesman Problem

Like a TV shouting at an empty room,
I’m thinking loud thoughts I’m unable to name.
Molecules sort themselves into the shape of a man,
the way fallen leaves once arranged themselves
into the shape of an elm.
So many cities, so many towns,
a lifetime of suitcases, beige food.

I’ve ascended five thousand miles
steeped in a cappella muzak
no eye-contact, vacant smiles.
No matter what you’re selling
redemption is the shortest distance
between two points.
God ticks in every minute.
Elevator time is all there is.

This morning, when I glanced in the mirror,
it was like listening to mute crickets.
I can’t help but think that self-storage is a good idea,
secure and affordable, not that many break-ins.
Can the chameleon recall its native color?

On the highway now,
vacant as a July elementary school,
I turn up the music, drive faster.
Isolated thunder storms, lonely rain,
Why doesn’t the Genie
ever get a wish?

Rented Tux

I wasn’t sure whether I was dead or alive. Now, I know that’s just black and white thinking. I may be empty for the rest of my life, or some fungible equivalent thereof, but when you’ve had everything taken from you, again and again, you try to make the best of absence. Thank God, nature adores a vacuum, that I trained as a mime. Although I haven’t found my voice, I sometimes hear music that isn’t there. I’m taken places. The nights are clean. I sleepwalk. I’m a vacant fathom. Of course, a train doesn’t lay its own tracks, a book isn’t written to be read by other books. There is no Roman numeral zero. When I find myself admiring perfect strangers—the way they seem so comfortable in their skins, so nonchalant—I recall that appearances can be deceiving. And the wind, the invisible wind, always arriving, always departing. Always taking itself someplace brand new.

The Next Thing You Know

Everything, its own invention, happens eventually, although sometimes not at all: the music of fog, cannibal piñata, razor blade hula hoops. Have you noticed that if you talk about time, it slows? If you talk about love, it stops? Today, in Mecca, it’s 109 and raining arithmetic bees. The sky has gone too far. Clocks are machines for the manufacture of moments. Time is its own décor. I wonder what color I should paint the red ant farm? As the smoke clears, my body is riddled with PowerPoint bullets. Fortunately, I’m never hungry, because I’m food. Loving you is like chewing bees to get honey. The newspaper reads itself and begins sobbing uncontrollably. I’m happy that I am a room all to myself. I leave things to chance; nothing is ever my fault. Sometimes it’s particles, sometimes waves. Beneath the striped fur of the tiger, the skin, too, is striped.

[editor's favorites, 2013]

CP

Brad Rose was born and raised in southern California, and lives in Boston. Links to his poetry and fiction can be found at http://bradrosepoetry.blogspot.com/